practical side of Smartstills (etc)

[Carl D]

I understand you can buy these 'water purifiers' in the UK
and then follow the 'New Zealand only' instructions for
illicit purposes. :-)

I've looked at those instructions on the websites, but they
don't tell me a few practical things, which I wonder if
anyone here can advise me about.

How long does a batch take to run?

How much electricity does it use?

If you buy one of these, do you get visits from the
'revenooers' asking to see what you're doing with it?

thanks

[Rod Speed]

Carl D <ca...@example.com> wrote

> I understand you can buy these 'water purifiers'
> in the UK and then follow the 'New Zealand only'
> instructions for illicit purposes. :-)

Yep.

> I've looked at those instructions on the websites,
> but they don't tell me a few practical things, which
> I wonder if anyone here can advise me about.

> How long does a batch take to run?

The distilling takes a few hours.

It takes a lot longer to ferment the brew that you distil
a week or so depending on the temperature that you
keep it at and whether you are prepared to pay more
for the more energetic yeast which isnt that cheap.

> How much electricity does it use?

Not enough to worry about.

> If you buy one of these, do you get visits from the
> 'revenooers' asking to see what you're doing with it?

Not in australia we don�t, dunno about over there.

I doubt it, I would expect you would have heard
about it if it happened much.

[harry]

Pretty easy to poison yourself or go blind.

[Rod Speed]

"harry" <harry...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:938e7963-5fea-4ec3...@w3g2000vba.googlegroups.com...

Bullshit.

[John Rumm]

On 27/02/2013 23:17, Carl D wrote:
> I understand you can buy these 'water purifiers' in the UK
> and then follow the 'New Zealand only' instructions for
> illicit purposes. :-)
>
> I've looked at those instructions on the websites, but they
> don't tell me a few practical things, which I wonder if
> anyone here can advise me about.
>
> How long does a batch take to run?
>
> How much electricity does it use?

That's probably not too difficult to work out - basically the energy
required to boil and then convert to steam however much liquid you have
+ plus a fair amount of waste heat to the surroundings probably.

So a litre of water at 10 degs ambient, will need 90 x 4200 = 378kJ to
get to boiling. Then another 2260kJ to phase change to gas. So call it
about 3MJ to allow for losses. So a tad under 1 kWh which is 3.6MJ


--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

[Andy Champ]

On 28/02/2013 10:33, John Rumm wrote:
> That's probably not too difficult to work out - basically the energy
> required to boil and then convert to steam however much liquid you have
> + plus a fair amount of waste heat to the surroundings probably.
>
> So a litre of water at 10 degs ambient, will need 90 x 4200 = 378kJ to
> get to boiling. Then another 2260kJ to phase change to gas. So call it
> about 3MJ to allow for losses. So a tad under 1 kWh which is 3.6MJ

Interestingly a continuous system should be more efficient - you can use
fresh liquid coming in to cool the vapour, which preheats the liquid...

Andy

[John Rumm]

Indeed - a cross flow heat exchange basically.

[Steve Firth]

John Rumm <see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:
> On 28/02/2013 11:04, Andy Champ wrote:
>> On 28/02/2013 10:33, John Rumm wrote:
>>> That's probably not too difficult to work out - basically the energy
>>> required to boil and then convert to steam however much liquid you have
>>> + plus a fair amount of waste heat to the surroundings probably.
>>>
>>> So a litre of water at 10 degs ambient, will need 90 x 4200 = 378kJ to
>>> get to boiling. Then another 2260kJ to phase change to gas. So call it
>>> about 3MJ to allow for losses. So a tad under 1 kWh which is 3.6MJ
>>
>> Interestingly a continuous system should be more efficient - you can use
>> fresh liquid coming in to cool the vapour, which preheats the liquid...
>
> Indeed - a cross flow heat exchange basically.

I'm left wondering if a vacuum still makes more sense. At least an
interesting project. A filter pump could easily get the bp of ethanol down
to 42°C at 0.2 bar which should save some electricity costs.

--
<•DarWin><|
_/ _/

[Rod Speed]

"Jethro_uk" <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> wrote in message
news:512f225d$0$58011$c3e8da3$3863...@news.astraweb.com...

> On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:17:06 +0100, Carl D wrote:
>
>> I understand you can buy these 'water purifiers' in the UK and then
>> follow the 'New Zealand only' instructions for illicit purposes. :-)
>>
>> I've looked at those instructions on the websites, but they don't tell
>> me a few practical things, which I wonder if anyone here can advise me
>> about.
>>
>> How long does a batch take to run?
>

> You can ferment a 25l wash in 48 hours if you're really desperate. 5 days
> is more sensible. Once you have cleared the wash, it's 6 runs of 4l which
> produces 800ml of alcohol at 60% which you dilute down to 40% by adding
> 400ml water.

That’s one thing I have always wondered about, why bother with a fancy
reflux system and then dilute what you produce, instead of just using a
simpler still and not bothering to dilute as much ?

> Each run takes about 2.5 hours

> Once you've got the 40% it needs filtering. The Essencia 2-filter system
> is by far and a way the most effective.

>
>>
>> How much electricity does it use?
>

> 320W

>
>>
>> If you buy one of these, do you get visits from the 'revenooers' asking
>> to see what you're doing with it?
>

> Not in 5 years. AFAIK sales of stills are not recorded. I suspect they
> are suffering in silence on this one, to avoid the Streisland effect.
>
> If you are interested, there are more sophisticated stills available.
> Check out the Essencia reflux range (The Smart Still is a pot still)

[Scott Dorsey]

It is, that's why commercial operations that want to make raw alcohol
rather than liquor use column stills.

Much of what makes a pot still interesting is reflux and I have never used
a Smartstill so I don't know what the situation there is.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>That’s one thing I have always wondered about, why bother with a fancy
>reflux system and then dilute what you produce, instead of just using a
>simpler still and not bothering to dilute as much ?

If you were starting out with a mixture of water and alcohol and you wanted
to get a mixture of water and alcohol, that would be a good thing to do.

But you're starting out with a mixture of water and alcohol and nasty fusel
oils and tasty light fractions and all kinds of other stuff. You are trying
to get a quality liquor which retains the tasty light fractions and the
alcohol and removes the fusel oils and the water.

Depending on what you are fermenting and how you are fermenting it, you
may want to remove some part of the light fraction and not some others.
There are some cognacs where they discard the heads, then keep the first
part of the run, then discard the next part of the run, and then keep the
greatest part of the run while discarding the tails.

The point here is that you're starting out with a complex mix of stuff
and you want to end up with a complex mix of stuff, and your only tool is
the ability to sort by molecular weight. The reflux will affect how that
sorting operates.

Unless you are willing to experiment with thump barrels and still shape
while spot-checking with a mass spectrometer the way the folks at Glenfiddich
have, the only tool you have to tell what is in the distillate are your
nose and tongue.

[Scott Dorsey]

Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 01 Mar 2013 10:56:46 -0500, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>
>The finished alcohol comes out at c. 60%, and needs diluting (distilled
>water, naturally ;) ) down to 40%. Because of the nature of a pot still,
>it can still carry some hints of the brewing medium (makes it taste
>"cardboardy", so I've been told). So a good filter system is really
>important. The original SmartStills used a "teabag" of charcoal which you
>dripped the distillate through, as it ran. These were pisspoor, and
>occasionally they'd clump, and the distillate would overflow. They then
>changed this for a system where you had a charcoal cartridge you fitted
>to a receiver, and let the 60% drain through that.

Carrying hints of the brewing medium is important! The whole notion of
just randomly adsorbing everything through charcoal is horrifying. It
will remove all vestiges of flavour.

>However, Essencia sell a filter which has a ceramic *and* charcoal
>filter. As long as you replace them when needed (after 50 washes for the
>ceramic, 5 for the charcoal) the polished alcohol is completely tasteless.

That sounds horrible. Why would I want alcohol that is completely tasteless?
If I just wanted raw alcohol I'd buy it in a shop.

Indeed, if you just want to make flavourless crap alcohol, a column still
can do it cheaper and faster than anything anyone could do in small batches.
The reason why you distill in small batches is to make bespoke brandies,
gins, and whiskeys.

[dennis@home]

On 01/03/2013 16:35, Scott Dorsey wrote:


> Indeed, if you just want to make flavourless crap alcohol, a column still
> can do it cheaper and faster than anything anyone could do in small batches.
> The reason why you distill in small batches is to make bespoke brandies,
> gins, and whiskeys.

You wouldn't want to drink the stuff that comes out of a still for any
whisky. Virtually all the taste comes from the barrel it is aged in not
from the alcohol.

[Rod Speed]

Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote

> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote

>> That's one thing I have always wondered about, why bother with
>> a fancy reflux system and then dilute what you produce, instead
>> of just using a simpler still and not bothering to dilute as much ?

> If you were starting out with a mixture of water and alcohol and you
> wanted
> to get a mixture of water and alcohol, that would be a good thing to do.

> But you're starting out with a mixture of water and alcohol and
> nasty fusel oils and tasty light fractions and all kinds of other stuff.

Is that normally true with home distilling ?

> You are trying to get a quality liquor which retains the tasty light
> fractions and the alcohol and removes the fusel oils and the water.

Is that so true with the cruder home distilling ? That seems to be
much more about just getting rid of the bulk of the water and then
adding the flavours to the distilled alcohol, not trying to ensure that
they are there in what you distil and getting them thru to the end result.

Clearly the best of the single malts are nothing like that, but most of the
home distilling isnt even attempting stuff like that and stuff like that has
other massive downsides like the 50 years before you can drink it etc.

> Depending on what you are fermenting and how you are fermenting it, you
> may want to remove some part of the light fraction and not some others.
> There are some cognacs where they discard the heads, then keep the first
> part of the run, then discard the next part of the run, and then keep the
> greatest part of the run while discarding the tails.

> The point here is that you're starting out with a complex mix
> of stuff and you want to end up with a complex mix of stuff,

I'm not sure most do with the bulk of home distilling on that last.

> and your only tool is the ability to sort by molecular weight.

Not with the bulk of home distilling, you just
add that to the alcohol you produce with the still.

You do that anyway with quite a bit of distilled spirits
like gin, schnapps, etc.

> The reflux will affect how that sorting operates.

Sure.

> Unless you are willing to experiment with thump barrels
> and still shape while spot-checking with a mass spectrometer
> the way the folks at Glenfiddich have, the only tool you have
> to tell what is in the distillate are your nose and tongue.

Sure, but most home distilling isnt about that stuff.

So are you saying that if you don’t care about that stuff, there
is no point in bothering with the more complex reflux stills ?

[Rod Speed]

Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote
> Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> wrote

>> Scott Dorsey wrote

>> The finished alcohol comes out at c. 60%, and needs diluting (distilled
>> water, naturally ;) ) down to 40%. Because of the nature of a pot still,
>> it can still carry some hints of the brewing medium (makes it taste
>> "cardboardy", so I've been told). So a good filter system is really
>> important. The original SmartStills used a "teabag" of charcoal which you
>> dripped the distillate through, as it ran. These were pisspoor, and
>> occasionally they'd clump, and the distillate would overflow. They then
>> changed this for a system where you had a charcoal cartridge you fitted
>> to a receiver, and let the 60% drain through that.

> Carrying hints of the brewing medium is important!

Not if you add the flavour later like you do with some distilled spirits.

> The whole notion of just randomly adsorbing everything through
> charcoal is horrifying. It will remove all vestiges of flavour.

You add the flavor later with some distilled spirits.

>> However, Essencia sell a filter which has a ceramic *and* charcoal
>> filter. As long as you replace them when needed (after 50 washes for the
>> ceramic, 5 for the charcoal) the polished alcohol is completely
>> tasteless.

> That sounds horrible. Why would I want alcohol that is completely
> tasteless?

So you can add the flavour later.

> If I just wanted raw alcohol I'd buy it in a shop.

Its much cheaper to make it yourself.

> Indeed, if you just want to make flavourless crap alcohol, a column still
> can do it cheaper and faster than anything anyone could do in small
> batches.

Yeah, that was my reaction, most home distillers would be better
off with a basic column still, much simpler and easier to maintain.

> The reason why you distill in small batches is
> to make bespoke brandies, gins, and whiskeys.

Yes, but not every is making those.

Its perfectly possible to get as good as the commercial
spirits by producing close to pure ethanol and adding
whatever flavour you want to that once you have that
and saving a heap because you don’t pay the excise duty.

Yes, that wont be anything like the best single malts etc
but those really arent very practical for home distilling
on the time before you can drink it alone.

[Scott Dorsey]

Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
>Ah, but you're not distilling whisky (or whatever). You are trying to get
>a pure (ish) alcohol to add flavourings to.

If you want to make cordials or liqueurs, that's fine. But to be honest,
I can't imagine it will be any cheaper to make your own in a pot still
than to just buy column-stilled grain alcohol (Everclear or the like).
Grain alcohol at least here in the southern US is very cheap.

>Yes, granted, it won't be as good, or nice as a properly distilled
>whisky. But then one costs c £3 a litre, while the other can cost £30
>(incidentally IMHO the £3 litre is still better than the supermarkets £12/
>litre offerings). Now the £30/litre is better, but 10x better ???

I don't know, there are an awful lot of people making properly distilled
whiskeys at home. Not as many as there once were, but a surprising number.

>FWIW when I have offered people a dram of homemade scotch (without
>explaining it's origins) no one has ever called me out and said "that's
>home made". I'm sure there are connoisseurs who could though.

Was it in fact Scotch or a liqueur?

[Scott Dorsey]

Actually, most of what happens in the aging process is that flavours are
removed. There is adsorption going on with the barrel, with heavy stuff
being taken out in the same way the activated charcoal drip mentioned
earlier does. Now, there is stuff added (especially if you're using old
sherry or port casks), but a lot of that is just tannins. By picking the
barrels you use and how much you toast them, you can get some crude control
over the degree of both these processes.

[The Natural Philosopher]

One of the mots important things is that the actual alcohol content goes
down.

I left a glass of brandy for a day and drank...well coloured brandy
flavoured water.


--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) – a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

[John Rumm]

On 03/03/2013 13:38, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> wrote:
>> Ah, but you're not distilling whisky (or whatever). You are trying to get
>> a pure (ish) alcohol to add flavourings to.
>
> If you want to make cordials or liqueurs, that's fine. But to be honest,
> I can't imagine it will be any cheaper to make your own in a pot still
> than to just buy column-stilled grain alcohol (Everclear or the like).
> Grain alcohol at least here in the southern US is very cheap.

I would expect that unless its denatured, it will attract significant
excise duty here in the UK, so it won't be cheap.

[Scott Dorsey]

Huge <use...@huge.org.uk> wrote:

>On 2013-03-03, Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote:
>>
>> Actually, most of what happens in the aging process is that flavours are
>> removed. There is adsorption going on with the barrel, with heavy stuff
>> being taken out in the same way the activated charcoal drip mentioned
>> earlier does. Now, there is stuff added (especially if you're using old
>> sherry or port casks), but a lot of that is just tannins. By picking the
>> barrels you use and how much you toast them, you can get some crude control
>> over the degree of both these processes.
>

>Actually, I've never read such a load of old tosh in my whole life. I've tasted
>Isle of Jura raw spirit and virtually everything you say is wrong.

Well, believe me or not, as you like.

But, you'll notice that the raw spirit is not exactly... smooth. You'll
notice that barrel aging takes the edge off that. How do you think that
process works?

[Steve Firth]

Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote:
[snip]

> Grain alcohol at least here in the southern US is very cheap.

That doesn't apply in other parts of the world.

--
<•DarWin><|
_/ _/

[The Natural Philosopher]

mostly by loss of overall alcohol content and gain of various barrel
flavours.

Pure distilled grain alcohol is almost pure ethanol.

It takes lots of added stuff to make it taste palatable as in gin or vodka.


> --scott

[Scott Dorsey]

Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote

>
>> But you're starting out with a mixture of water and alcohol and
>> nasty fusel oils and tasty light fractions and all kinds of other stuff.
>
>Is that normally true with home distilling ?

I don't know what people out there are distilling at home, but most of
the folks here are doing things like corn and rye liquors and fruit
brandies. All of which have a lot of light stuff coming out.

Folks who do commercial distillation of grain alcohol tend to use
turbo yeasts that can handle very high proofs, and those turbo yeasts
tend to produce a lot of phenols. Even if you're careful how you cut
the heads and tails, a pot still will leave a lot of that crap behind.

If you're fermenting a sugar mash with a baker's yeast or something
crude like that, I'm not sure what the beer going into the still is
going to be like. My suspicion is that it wouldn't taste so good.
The cleaner it is going on, the easier it will be to distill cleanly.

>> You are trying to get a quality liquor which retains the tasty light
>> fractions and the alcohol and removes the fusel oils and the water.
>
>Is that so true with the cruder home distilling ? That seems to be
>much more about just getting rid of the bulk of the water and then
>adding the flavours to the distilled alcohol, not trying to ensure that
>they are there in what you distil and getting them thru to the end result.

If your goal is just to make as much alcohol as possible as cheaply as
possible, and you don't want the trouble of setting up a small volume
column still, you could do that. I don't see a lot of point to that,
but if you're in a place where alcohol is expensive or difficult to get
you could.

>Clearly the best of the single malts are nothing like that, but most of the
>home distilling isnt even attempting stuff like that and stuff like that has
>other massive downsides like the 50 years before you can drink it etc.

Here in Virginia, "white liquor" made from corn is very popular. It has
a very interesting sort of corn taste, none of the spiciness that you get
from rye liquors. Sometimes it's aged, sometimes it's not aged at all.
It gets much mellower with age, but just a couple years of aging can do
wonders.

Things like fruit brandies tend to take a lot more aging to mellow out,
but you can make a poire william or something at home that you can drink
immediately. The key to doing that, I think, is to have the cleanest
possible beer.

>> Unless you are willing to experiment with thump barrels
>> and still shape while spot-checking with a mass spectrometer
>> the way the folks at Glenfiddich have, the only tool you have
>> to tell what is in the distillate are your nose and tongue.
>
>Sure, but most home distilling isnt about that stuff.

At least around here, it's difficult to make alcohol much cheaper than you
can buy in the stores, and it's also illegal. So the folks doing it are
mostly doing it in order to make something that you can't get in the stores.

>So are you saying that if you don�t care about that stuff, there
>is no point in bothering with the more complex reflux stills ?

There is _always_ reflux going on with any pot still... the shape of the
vessel you're boiling it in affects the reflux action because the top of
the vessel is cooler than the bottom and stuff is always going to be
condensing somewhere on the top. How important this is seems to be a
matter for argument still, even after centuries of research.

Adding a deliberate refluxing stage (what people here in Virginia call a
"thump barrel" or similar) is going to affect the flavour considerably,
because it will narrow down the band of different molecular weights that
pass through the still.

A lot of people specifically avoid the thump barrel because they don't
like the way it changes the taste. The advantage of the thump barrel is
that it gives you a higher proof distillate, so you can get away with
fewer passes through the still for a clean final product.

If you don't care about the taste or you're trying to eliminate the taste,
the reflux still is a huge win. It's not as big a win for eliminating taste
as the column still; the column still can pick out a very narrow range of
molecular weights from the raw beer and one trip through the still gives you
very pure alcohol. But, the column still is a pain to operate on a small
production basis. I don't know of anyone doing that sort of thing at home
but it might be fun to try just to see.

[Rod Speed]

Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote

> Jethro_uk <jeth...@hotmailbin.com> wrote

>> Ah, but you're not distilling whisky (or whatever). You
>> are trying to get a pure (ish) alcohol to add flavourings to.

> If you want to make cordials or liqueurs, that's fine.

It isnt just cordials or liqueurs, a crazy Dane I used to know
in the 60s used to start with SVR from the chem lab and just
add the appropriate flavouring to do produce schnapps etc.
Just as good as the bought stuff and vastly cheaper.

> But to be honest, I can't imagine it will be any cheaper to make your own
> in
> a pot still than to just buy column-stilled grain alcohol (Everclear or
> the like).

It certainly is here, MUCH cheaper, essentially because no excise is payable
on it.

> Grain alcohol at least here in the southern US is very cheap.

But he was talking about britain where it
isnt, essentially because of the excise duty.

>> Yes, granted, it won't be as good, or nice as a properly distilled

>> whisky. But then one costs c £3 a litre, while the other can cost £30
>> (incidentally IMHO the £3 litre is still better than the supermarkets
>> £12/
>> litre offerings). Now the £30/litre is better, but 10x better ???

> I don't know, there are an awful lot of people making properly distilled
> whiskeys at home. Not as many as there once were, but a surprising
> number.

But is it any better than doing it the other way,
getting pure ethanol and adding the flavouring ?

Certainly a lot more work than the pot still/flavouring route.

>> FWIW when I have offered people a dram of homemade scotch (without
>> explaining it's origins) no one has ever called me out and said "that's
>> home made". I'm sure there are connoisseurs who could though.

> Was it in fact Scotch or a liqueur?

Depends on how you define scotch.

[Rod Speed]

Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote

> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>> Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote

>>> But you're starting out with a mixture of water and alcohol and
>>> nasty fusel oils and tasty light fractions and all kinds of other stuff.

>> Is that normally true with home distilling ?

> I don't know what people out there are distilling at home, but
> most of the folks here are doing things like corn and rye liquors
> and fruit brandies. All of which have a lot of light stuff coming out.

Sure, mine wasn�t very specific about the 'normally'

Those that use a basic commercial home reflux still normally
start with just a sugar and water mix fermented with yeast
and distil that to get as close to just ethanol as they can
and then flavor and dilute that with water.

Most do discard the first bit of the output of the
still so without actually analysing it, I don�t expect
that there is that much in the way of nasty fusel
oils or much 'all other kinds of stuff' either.

> Folks who do commercial distillation of grain alcohol tend
> to use turbo yeasts that can handle very high proofs,

Those do get used quite a bit with home distilling too.

> and those turbo yeasts tend to produce a lot of phenols. Even if you're
> careful
> how you cut the heads and tails, a pot still will leave a lot of that crap
> behind.

But how much of that gets past the carbon filter ? Not
much IMO and that�s the reason for the carbon filter.

> If you're fermenting a sugar mash with a
> baker's yeast or something crude like that,

I don�t know of anyone who uses baker's yeast
instead of a brewing yeast. There isnt really
any point, the difference in price isnt enough
to matter in the total cost of the brew.

Plenty do use more expensive turbo yeasts tho.

> I'm not sure what the beer going into the still is going
> to be like. My suspicion is that it wouldn't taste so good.
> The cleaner it is going on, the easier it will be to distill cleanly.

Sure, but don�t forget the carbon filter.

>>> You are trying to get a quality liquor which retains the tasty light
>>> fractions and the alcohol and removes the fusel oils and the water.

>> Is that so true with the cruder home distilling ? That seems to be
>> much more about just getting rid of the bulk of the water and then
>> adding the flavours to the distilled alcohol, not trying to ensure that
>> they are there in what you distil and getting them thru to the end
>> result.

> If your goal is just to make as much alcohol as possible as cheaply as
> possible,

That is basically the main purpose with quite a bit of it,
just aiming to avoid paying the excise duty and to get
something that�s as drinkable as the cheap end of the
discounted scotches, not aiming for a single malt etc.

Particularly with the simpler spirits like gin, vodka, schnapps etc.

> and you don't want the trouble of setting up a small volume
> column still, you could do that. I don't see a lot of point to
> that, but if you're in a place where alcohol is expensive

It mostly is right throughout the modern english speaking world.

Particularly when you brew your own beer to get better
than the commercial beer and to avoid paying the excise
duty, that what most are trying to do with home distilling.

Is not really feasible to do better than the best of the commercial
aged single malts etc on the time for aging alone tho I would
certainly prefer to go that route if I could. But if it was that easy, you'd
expect someone would be doing it commercially and they arent.

> or difficult to get

That would only be true in the dry places. We haven't been
stupid enough to go that route and never had your Prohibition.

> you could.

Hordes do. To get back to the original question, if that what you
want, presumably there is no point in a fancy reflux still, you might
as well just take the packing out of a commercial electric still and
get the benefit of easier maintenance, easier cleaning involved etc.

>> Clearly the best of the single malts are nothing like that, but most of
>> the
>> home distilling isnt even attempting stuff like that and stuff like that
>> has
>> other massive downsides like the 50 years before you can drink it etc.

> Here in Virginia, "white liquor" made from corn is very popular. It has
> a very interesting sort of corn taste, none of the spiciness that you get
> from rye liquors. Sometimes it's aged, sometimes it's not aged at all.
> It gets much mellower with age, but just a couple years of aging can do
> wonders.

OK, that�s worth doing. I age my beer already and while I don�t
age it as much as that, a couple of years is very feasible.

> Things like fruit brandies tend to take a lot more aging to
> mellow out, but you can make a poire william or something
> at home that you can drink immediately. The key to doing
> that, I think, is to have the cleanest possible beer.

What do you mean by that ? Do you mean
actually filtering it before distilling it ?

>>> Unless you are willing to experiment with thump barrels
>>> and still shape while spot-checking with a mass spectrometer
>>> the way the folks at Glenfiddich have, the only tool you have
>>> to tell what is in the distillate are your nose and tongue.

>> Sure, but most home distilling isnt about that stuff.

> At least around here, it's difficult to make alcohol
> much cheaper than you can buy in the stores,

Its completely trivial to do that almost everywhere
else in the modern english speaking world.

> and it's also illegal.

Sure. About the only place it isnt is New Zealand.

> So the folks doing it are mostly doing it in order
> to make something that you can't get in the stores.

OK, that�s very different here.

I'm not sure that you can actually by ethanol that�s distilled,
most of it is called absolute alcohol and that has the last of
the water removed using benzene and isnt fit to drink.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol#Absolute_alcohol

There is another form, called SVR, used in chem labs where
the purest alcohol is needed, but that more expensive than
the cheapest commercial drinkable spirits because its so pure.

>> So are you saying that if you don�t care about that stuff, there

>> is no point in bothering with the more complex reflux stills ?

> There is _always_ reflux going on with any pot still...

Sure, that�s why I used the phrase 'more complex reflux stills'

> the shape of the vessel you're boiling it in affects the reflux action
> because the top of the vessel is cooler than the bottom and stuff is
> always going to be condensing somewhere on the top. How important
> this is seems to be a matter for argument still, even after centuries of
> research.

> Adding a deliberate refluxing stage (what people here in Virginia
> call a "thump barrel" or similar) is going to affect the flavour
> considerably, because it will narrow down the band of
> different molecular weights that pass through the still.

Presumably you mean there at any one time etc.

> A lot of people specifically avoid the thump barrel because
> they don't like the way it changes the taste. The advantage
> of the thump barrel is that it gives you a higher proof distillate,

Yeah, that what brought up my original question.

Why do you care about the proof if you dilute it anyway ?

> so you can get away with fewer passes
> through the still for a clean final product.

Guess that could be why so many of those doing the sort
of basic home distilling uses the more complex reflux stills,
so you can just do one pass when combined with a decent
carbon filter.

> If you don't care about the taste or you're trying to eliminate the taste,
> the reflux still is a huge win. It's not as big a win for eliminating
> taste
> as the column still; the column still can pick out a very narrow range
> of molecular weights from the raw beer and one trip through the still
> gives you very pure alcohol. But, the column still is a pain to operate
> on a small production basis.

Why ?

> I don't know of anyone doing that sort of thing
> at home but it might be fun to try just to see.

I used to be a chemist, and I did wonder about going
that route with a standard chem lab column still and
I did wonder why it wasn�t used more.

I don�t see why its any harder to use than one of the small
commercial stainless steel reflux stills being discussed.

[Scott Dorsey]

In article <api42g...@mid.individual.net>,
>Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote

>
>> If you want to make cordials or liqueurs, that's fine.
>
>It isnt just cordials or liqueurs, a crazy Dane I used to know
>in the 60s used to start with SVR from the chem lab and just
>add the appropriate flavouring to do produce schnapps etc.
>Just as good as the bought stuff and vastly cheaper.

Schnapps is definitely in the liqueur category for just that
reason. Likewise arrack, ouzo, all of those flavoured things.

Easy to make commercially, they take column-distilled alcohol,
dilute to working proof with deionized water, add diluted solution
of flavouring oil.

You can do the same thing just as effectively at home and the flavouring
will hide many great sins of poor quality materials.

>> I don't know, there are an awful lot of people making properly distilled
>> whiskeys at home. Not as many as there once were, but a surprising
>> number.
>
>But is it any better than doing it the other way,
>getting pure ethanol and adding the flavouring ?

Depends what you want. Personally, I like whiskey and fruit brandies,
rather than flavoured liqueurs, but that's a personal preference.

>>> FWIW when I have offered people a dram of homemade scotch (without
>>> explaining it's origins) no one has ever called me out and said "that's
>>> home made". I'm sure there are connoisseurs who could though.
>
>> Was it in fact Scotch or a liqueur?
>
>Depends on how you define scotch.

My _very rough_ minimal standard would be that it be malted and mashed in the
traditional scotch process. I'm not _sure_ I'd require the malt to be peat
roasted, but it helps. Distilled two or three times, stuck in a barrel for
a while, diluted to working strength.

Note that this standard would allow a lot of things that the Whisky Heritage
Center in Edinburgh would toss you out on the street for even mentioning in
polite company.

It probably would not extend to liqueurs made with smoke flavouring or
Suntory's repulsive powdered whisky.

[Scott Dorsey]

In article <api69t...@mid.individual.net>,

>Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote
>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>

>Those that use a basic commercial home reflux still normally
>start with just a sugar and water mix fermented with yeast
>and distil that to get as close to just ethanol as they can
>and then flavor and dilute that with water.
>
>Most do discard the first bit of the output of the

>still so without actually analysing it, I don�t expect

>that there is that much in the way of nasty fusel
>oils or much 'all other kinds of stuff' either.

You can still wind up with an awful lot of crap in there, depending on
the yeast. Smell the beer, taste a little of it. Using a commercial
yeast nutrient package and a very clean-fermenting yeast like a champagne
yeast will help.

>> and those turbo yeasts tend to produce a lot of phenols. Even if you're
>> careful
>> how you cut the heads and tails, a pot still will leave a lot of that crap
>> behind.
>
>But how much of that gets past the carbon filter ? Not

>much IMO and that�s the reason for the carbon filter.

I don't know, because I don't really know what the distribution of junk
coming off the turbo yeast is. I'd agree that carbon filtration would take
a lot of that out. Carbon filtration will also remove most high order
alcohols which is a good thing.

>> If your goal is just to make as much alcohol as possible as cheaply as
>> possible,
>
>That is basically the main purpose with quite a bit of it,
>just aiming to avoid paying the excise duty and to get

>something that�s as drinkable as the cheap end of the

>discounted scotches, not aiming for a single malt etc.

There's not a lot of art in that, though. That seems kind of sad and
depressing when you can use the same apparatus with a little bit more
care to make an apple brandy that is as good as anything that ever came
from Calvados.

>Particularly when you brew your own beer to get better
>than the commercial beer and to avoid paying the excise
>duty, that what most are trying to do with home distilling.

Around here, it is more that it is a centuries-old tradition that people
are trying to keep alive, also some people think of it as a form of
rebellion against taxation.

>Is not really feasible to do better than the best of the commercial
>aged single malts etc on the time for aging alone tho I would
>certainly prefer to go that route if I could. But if it was that easy, you'd
>expect someone would be doing it commercially and they arent.

I think it's easier to do whiskeys than brandies and it's possible to make
a wide variety of good whiskeys that, while very different than a proper
Scotch, are still quite pleasant and drinkable.

>Hordes do. To get back to the original question, if that what you
>want, presumably there is no point in a fancy reflux still, you might
>as well just take the packing out of a commercial electric still and
>get the benefit of easier maintenance, easier cleaning involved etc.

I think that adding a reflux chamber to a commercial electric still would
not be difficult and would mean you could probably get away with two passes
through the still rather than three.

>> Things like fruit brandies tend to take a lot more aging to
>> mellow out, but you can make a poire william or something
>> at home that you can drink immediately. The key to doing
>> that, I think, is to have the cleanest possible beer.
>
>What do you mean by that ? Do you mean
>actually filtering it before distilling it ?

I mean by "clean" that the beer doesn't have much nasty stuff in it. The
less nasty stuff you put into the still, the less nasty stuff you are going
to get out the other end.

This is more important in the case of an alembic than a pot still, more
important for a pot still than a reflux still, more important for a reflux
still than a column. The sharper the range of molecular weights you are
selecting for, the less careful you have to be about that.

>I'm not sure that you can actually by ethanol that�s distilled,

>most of it is called absolute alcohol and that has the last of
>the water removed using benzene and isnt fit to drink.
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol#Absolute_alcohol

In most states of the US, you can buy "Everclear" which runs around 80%
ethanol, and it's been run off a column. Other brands of grain alcohol
are "Grain Belt" and "Golden Grain" and they are very popular beverages
with ministers and gospel singers because they leave little scent on the
breath.

Most of the cheaper vodkas are the same product, diluted down to 40%.

None of these are absolute or even close to absolute, but they are as
close to absolute as you can get without doing anything fancy.

In Mexico you can buy "aguardiente mineral" which is made from oxidation
of ethylene gas, I believe. It comes in plastic jugs, diluted down to
40% alcohol, and it is very popular with the people who are seeking the
most drunkenness for the least money.

>> Adding a deliberate refluxing stage (what people here in Virginia
>> call a "thump barrel" or similar) is going to affect the flavour
>> considerably, because it will narrow down the band of
>> different molecular weights that pass through the still.
>
>Presumably you mean there at any one time etc.

Right. You still have the same process with the pot still that, as it heats
up, light fractions come off, then heavier and heavier fractions as it
continues to run. It's just that what is coming off is a narrower range
of molecular weight.

With the reflux stage, you can usually get up to barrel proof with two
trips through the still rather than three, so it's less effort.

>> A lot of people specifically avoid the thump barrel because
>> they don't like the way it changes the taste. The advantage
>> of the thump barrel is that it gives you a higher proof distillate,
>
>Yeah, that what brought up my original question.
>
>Why do you care about the proof if you dilute it anyway ?

In part because repeated distillation also removes other stuff as well as
water from the feedstock.

>> If you don't care about the taste or you're trying to eliminate the taste,
>> the reflux still is a huge win. It's not as big a win for eliminating
>> taste
>> as the column still; the column still can pick out a very narrow range
>> of molecular weights from the raw beer and one trip through the still
>> gives you very pure alcohol. But, the column still is a pain to operate
>> on a small production basis.
>
>Why ?

Partly the difficulty of getting the thing started. The Busch brewery around
here runs a small (50 litre/day output) column which they use to extract
commercial alcohol out of spent mash and other general waste. It more or less
runs unattended taking feed from a big holding tank, but if they run the tank
dry it's normally a day-long operation getting all of the temperatures right
to get the thing started properly again.

>I used to be a chemist, and I did wonder about going
>that route with a standard chem lab column still and

>I did wonder why it wasn�t used more.
>
>I don�t see why its any harder to use than one of the small

>commercial stainless steel reflux stills being discussed.

I don't know, I have never run one myself. I've run some big commercial
pot stills, but never any kind of column. I'd love to see someone try
it, though! It could be a fun project.

[Rod Speed]

Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote
> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>> Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote
>>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote

>> Those that use a basic commercial home reflux still normally
>> start with just a sugar and water mix fermented with yeast
>> and distil that to get as close to just ethanol as they can
>> and then flavor and dilute that with water.

>> Most do discard the first bit of the output of the

>> still so without actually analysing it, I don�t expect

>> that there is that much in the way of nasty fusel
>> oils or much 'all other kinds of stuff' either.

> You can still wind up with an awful lot of crap in there,
> depending on the yeast. Smell the beer, taste a little of
> it. Using a commercial yeast nutrient package and a very
> clean-fermenting yeast like a champagne yeast will help.

And starting with just sugar too. That�s not what you do with beer.

>>> and those turbo yeasts tend to produce a lot of phenols.
>>> Even if you're careful how you cut the heads and tails, a
>>> pot still will leave a lot of that crap behind.

>> But how much of that gets past the carbon filter ? Not

>> much IMO and that�s the reason for the carbon filter.

> I don't know, because I don't really know what the
> distribution of junk coming off the turbo yeast is.

Yeah, I've never seen any of the turbo yeast
suppliers give any data on that sort of thing at all.

> I'd agree that carbon filtration would take a lot
> of that out. Carbon filtration will also remove
> most high order alcohols which is a good thing.

Yeah, I assumed that�s why they use carbon filtration.

>>> If your goal is just to make as much alcohol as
>>> possible as cheaply as possible,

>> That is basically the main purpose with quite a bit of it,
>> just aiming to avoid paying the excise duty and to get

>> something that�s as drinkable as the cheap end of the

>> discounted scotches, not aiming for a single malt etc.

> There's not a lot of art in that, though.

True, but that�s not the aim, its just to get as good as the
cheap end of commercial scotches for a much better price.

We have the rather bizarre situation where so much of the
english speaking world charges a hell of a lot of excise duty
on stuff like spirits, essentially as a IMO misguided approach
of slugging those who prefer to drink spirits over the much
lower taxed high proof end of the wine industry like sherrys
and ports etc.

> That seems kind of sad and depressing when you can
> use the same apparatus with a little bit more care to
> make an apple brandy that is as good as anything
> that ever came from Calvados.

True, but some of us are more into the scotch
end of the spirit market and in my case I don�t
mix it with anything at all, not even water or ice.

Which makes it harder to get close to the quite
decent commercial stuff like say Johnny Walker etc.

I much prefer the best end of the single malts,
just don�t see that it makes any sense to be
spending anything like that sort of money
on day to day drinking scotch.

>> Particularly when you brew your own beer to get better
>> than the commercial beer and to avoid paying the excise
>> duty, that what most are trying to do with home distilling.

> Around here, it is more that it is a centuries-old tradition
> that people are trying to keep alive, also some people
> think of it as a form of rebellion against taxation.

I must admit I am in the last category. Not so much against
all taxation, more the rather bizarre situation where the
high proof end of the wine industry with stuff like sherry
and port isnt taxed at anything like the same level as with
the spirits like scotch and gin and brandy etc.

That�s not the reason I brew beer, I do that because the
result is much better than the best of the commercial
beer, even the bespoke commercial beers and isnt that
hard to do at all.

>> Is not really feasible to do better than the best of the commercial
>> aged single malts etc on the time for aging alone tho I would
>> certainly prefer to go that route if I could. But if it was that easy,
>> you'd
>> expect someone would be doing it commercially and they arent.

> I think it's easier to do whiskeys than brandies and it's possible
> to make a wide variety of good whiskeys that, while very different
> than a proper Scotch, are still quite pleasant and drinkable.

Yeah, no argument there. Unfortunately for me my preference is scotch.

As far as quite pleasant and drinkable is concerned, as good
as the best of the mass market commercial scotches is fine.

>> Hordes do. To get back to the original question, if that what you
>> want, presumably there is no point in a fancy reflux still, you might
>> as well just take the packing out of a commercial electric still and
>> get the benefit of easier maintenance, easier cleaning involved etc.

> I think that adding a reflux chamber to a
> commercial electric still would not be difficult

You can buy them like that.

> and would mean you could probably get away
> with two passes through the still rather than three.

Do you really need more than one if you just
want ethanol and don�t care about the proof
because you are diluting it anyway.

Which brings up another question, why is commercial
scotch largely of about the same proof given its diluted ?

>>> Things like fruit brandies tend to take a lot more aging to
>>> mellow out, but you can make a poire william or something
>>> at home that you can drink immediately. The key to doing
>>> that, I think, is to have the cleanest possible beer.

>> What do you mean by that ? Do you mean
>> actually filtering it before distilling it ?

> I mean by "clean" that the beer doesn't have much nasty
> stuff in it. The less nasty stuff you put into the still, the
> less nasty stuff you are going to get out the other end.

Sure, but why bother with beer at all rather than just clean
sugar given that you are going for just the ethanol ?

> This is more important in the case of an alembic than a pot still, more
> important for a pot still than a reflux still, more important for a reflux
> still than a column. The sharper the range of molecular weights you
> are selecting for, the less careful you have to be about that.

Particularly when combined with a carbon filter.

>> I'm not sure that you can actually by ethanol that�s distilled,

>> most of it is called absolute alcohol and that has the last of
>> the water removed using benzene and isnt fit to drink.
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol#Absolute_alcohol

> In most states of the US, you can buy "Everclear" which runs
> around 80% ethanol, and it's been run off a column. Other
> brands of grain alcohol are "Grain Belt" and "Golden Grain"

We don�t have anything like that for
some reason, presumably regulatory.

The drunks concentrate on the high proof end of the wine
industry, mostly cheap port etc in multi gallon flagons.

> and they are very popular beverages with ministers and
> gospel singers because they leave little scent on the breath.

We don�t have anything like as much of that in australia or britain either.

The roman catholic church has never opposed their priests drinking.

Not sure what the story is with the nuns.

> Most of the cheaper vodkas are the same product, diluted down to 40%.

> None of these are absolute or even close to absolute, but they are
> as close to absolute as you can get without doing anything fancy.

> In Mexico you can buy "aguardiente mineral" which is made from
> oxidation of ethylene gas, I believe. It comes in plastic jugs, diluted
> down to 40% alcohol, and it is very popular with the people who
> are seeking the most drunkenness for the least money.

We don�t have anything like that for some reason, just the flagon port etc.

Quite a few of the drunks are into sweet sherrys.

>>> Adding a deliberate refluxing stage (what people here in
>>> Virginia call a "thump barrel" or similar) is going to affect
>>> the flavour considerably, because it will narrow down the
>>> band of different molecular weights that pass through the still.

>> Presumably you mean there at any one time etc.

> Right. You still have the same process with the pot still that,
> as it heats up, light fractions come off, then heavier and heavier
> fractions as it continues to run. It's just that what is coming
> off is a narrower range of molecular weight.

> With the reflux stage, you can usually get up to barrel proof with
> two trips through the still rather than three, so it's less effort.

>>> A lot of people specifically avoid the thump barrel because
>>> they don't like the way it changes the taste. The advantage
>>> of the thump barrel is that it gives you a higher proof distillate,

>> Yeah, that what brought up my original question.

>> Why do you care about the proof if you dilute it anyway ?

> In part because repeated distillation also removes
> other stuff as well as water from the feedstock.

But the carbon filter replaces that approach.

>>> If you don't care about the taste or you're trying to eliminate the
>>> taste,
>>> the reflux still is a huge win. It's not as big a win for eliminating
>>> taste
>>> as the column still; the column still can pick out a very narrow range
>>> of molecular weights from the raw beer and one trip through the still
>>> gives you very pure alcohol. But, the column still is a pain to operate
>>> on a small production basis.

>> Why ?

> Partly the difficulty of getting the thing started.

Never had any trouble in that regard with column stills when I was a
chemist.

> The Busch brewery around here runs a small (50 litre/day output) column
> which they use to extract commercial alcohol out of spent mash and other
> general waste. It more or less runs unattended taking feed from a big
> holding tank, but if they run the tank dry it's normally a day-long
> operation
> getting all of the temperatures right to get the thing started properly
> again.

Wonder why ?

You certainly don�t get that effect with the glass column stills used
in the chem lab. Those are a batch system tho, not continuous.

>> I used to be a chemist, and I did wonder about going
>> that route with a standard chem lab column still and

>> I did wonder why it wasn�t used more.

>> I don�t see why its any harder to use than one of the small

>> commercial stainless steel reflux stills being discussed.

> I don't know, I have never run one myself. I've run some
> big commercial pot stills, but never any kind of column. I'd
> love to see someone try it, though! It could be a fun project.

Yeah, that was my reaction too.

[usenet2012]

In message
<ee0e972279f4467a...@msgid.frell.theremailer.net>, Carl D
<ca...@example.com> writes

>
>If you buy one of these, do you get visits from the
>'revenooers' asking to see what you're doing with it?

A fellow allotmenteer has assured me that as long as you don't sell the
produce distilling is fine & legal. Is he already blind or correct?

--
Simon

12) The Second Rule of Expectations
An EXPECTATION is a Premeditated resentment.

[polygonum]

On 04/03/2013 17:14, usenet2012 wrote:
> In message
> <ee0e972279f4467a...@msgid.frell.theremailer.net>, Carl D
> <ca...@example.com> writes
>>
>> If you buy one of these, do you get visits from the
>> 'revenooers' asking to see what you're doing with it?
>
> A fellow allotmenteer has assured me that as long as you don't sell the
> produce distilling is fine & legal. Is he already blind or correct?
>

Although rather a lot of years ago, my school had its own still simply
for distilled water in the science block. We were told that the revenue
had to know of it and could descend at any time to check its contents. I
hardly think they are going to turn a blind eye to distilling now.

--
Rod

[Rod Speed]

usenet2012 <usene...@invalid2012.org.uk> wrote
> Carl D <ca...@example.com> wrote

>> If you buy one of these, do you get visits from the
>> 'revenooers' asking to see what you're doing with it?

> A fellow allotmenteer has assured me that as long as you don't sell
> the produce distilling is fine & legal. Is he already blind or correct?

He's just plain wrong in all but New Zealand and
a tiny handful of even more obscure jurisdictions.

Hardly any jurisdiction appears to care much
about it done on a small scale anymore tho.

[Nick Odell]

On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:18:59 -0800 (PST), harry
<harry...@btinternet.com> wrote:

>On Feb 27, 11:17 pm, Carl D <c...@example.com> wrote:
>> I understand you can buy these 'water purifiers' in the UK
>> and then follow the 'New Zealand only' instructions for
>> illicit purposes. :-)
>>
>> I've looked at those instructions on the websites, but they
>> don't tell me a few practical things, which I wonder if
>> anyone here can advise me about.
>>
>> How long does a batch take to run?
>>
>> How much electricity does it use?

>>
>> If you buy one of these, do you get visits from the
>> 'revenooers' asking to see what you're doing with it?
>>

>> thanks
>
>Pretty easy to poison yourself or go blind.

Just out of idle curiosity, do the fusil oils etc pre-exist in the
original wine or beer or are they created by the process of
distillation?

Nick

[Andy Champ]

On 05/03/2013 10:26, Nick Odell wrote:
> Just out of idle curiosity, do the fusil oils etc pre-exist in the
> original wine or beer or are they created by the process of
> distillation?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusel_alcohol>

Andy

[Nick Odell]

On 5 Mar 2013 10:49:59 GMT, Huge <Hu...@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:

>On 2013-03-05, Nick Odell <ni...@themusicworkshop.plus.com> wrote:
>
>> Just out of idle curiosity, do the fusil oils etc pre-exist in the
>> original wine or beer or are they created by the process of
>> distillation?
>

>The latter. They are by-products of alcoholic fermentation, principally
>amyl alcohol, propanol and butanol.

Now I'm confused: I would have presumed that making the original beer
or wine would have been a process of alcoholic fermentation. I was
wondering if heavy drinkers of beer and wine have more to worry about
than their livers.

Nick

[Nick Odell]

On Tue, 05 Mar 2013 10:55:15 +0000, Andy Champ <no....@nospam.invalid>
wrote:

Thanks!

Nick

[Adam Funk]

On 2013-03-04, Jethro_uk wrote:

> Home distilling really took off in the 90s in New Zealand, when the
> government there accidentally legalised it. Having let the genie out of
> the bottle, they decided not to try and re-enact the previous ban. And so
> a whole country became experts in distilling and making spirits. And
> exporting the technology.


The way I heard it was that the NZ customs officers asked the
government to legalize it because they said enforcing the ban was a
waste of their time.

[Scott Dorsey]

Nick Odell <ni...@themusicworkshop.plus.com> wrote:
>
>Just out of idle curiosity, do the fusil oils etc pre-exist in the
>original wine or beer or are they created by the process of
>distillation?

They exist in the feedstock as a byproduct of fermentation.

What is really cool is that sometimes the distillation process can turn
the long-chain alcohols that make up fusel oils into esters that can add
pleasant fruity flavours, just as a side effect of boiling and reflux in
the presence of an acid.

[Scott Dorsey]

Huge <use...@huge.org.uk> wrote:
>On 2013-03-05, Nick Odell <ni...@themusicworkshop.plus.com> wrote:
>

>> Just out of idle curiosity, do the fusil oils etc pre-exist in the
>> original wine or beer or are they created by the process of
>> distillation?
>

>The latter. They are by-products of alcoholic fermentation, principally
>amyl alcohol, propanol and butanol.

Ironically, this morning I went to youtube and searched on "isoamyl alcohol"
and the first video that came up on the list was a paid ad from Smirnoff.

[Rod Speed]

"Nick Odell" <ni...@themusicworkshop.plus.com> wrote in message
news:mshbj8p3mn9snaj11...@4ax.com...

Some of them certainly do. That's why
you need top age it before you drink it.

> or are they created by the process of distillation?

Not as much.

[Scott Dorsey]

Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote
>

>> You can still wind up with an awful lot of crap in there,
>> depending on the yeast. Smell the beer, taste a little of
>> it. Using a commercial yeast nutrient package and a very
>> clean-fermenting yeast like a champagne yeast will help.
>

>And starting with just sugar too. That’s not what you do with beer.

If you start with just sugar, the beer you get (and I use beer to mean
anything that comes out of one or more fermentation steps and becomes
feed stock for the still) is kind of nasty and cidery, because the
yeasts are not healthy. Using some of the "yeast nutrient" packages
that are available commercially ought to help this... I know they help
a lot for people making rum from molasses.

>True, but some of us are more into the scotch

>end of the spirit market and in my case I don’t

>mix it with anything at all, not even water or ice.
>
>Which makes it harder to get close to the quite
>decent commercial stuff like say Johnny Walker etc.

It's worth trying, though! Try fermenting a malt beer, just straight
sweet mash with no conditioning or anything and see what you get. Yes,
it will benefit from aging, but it can be a fine, fine thing.

>That’s not the reason I brew beer, I do that because the

>result is much better than the best of the commercial
>beer, even the bespoke commercial beers and isnt that
>hard to do at all.

You can certainly get into the same league as the better commercial
whiskeys and I think you could certainly make something more palatable
than Johnny Walker with a little effort, but admittedly I do not hold
JW in very high regard so I might be biased. And I'm a brandy guy,
but I live in an area where there is a lot of small batch whiskey going
on.

>Do you really need more than one if you just

>want ethanol and don’t care about the proof

>because you are diluting it anyway.

I'd guess that it depends on how aggressively you're filtering it.

>Which brings up another question, why is commercial
>scotch largely of about the same proof given its diluted ?

It's made high proof to get the nasty stuff out and make it convenient
for aging. It's diluted down to drinking proof (sometimes a little
higher than drinking proof to my tastes) because nobody wants to drink
barrel strength.

>> This is more important in the case of an alembic than a pot still, more
>> important for a pot still than a reflux still, more important for a reflux
>> still than a column. The sharper the range of molecular weights you
>> are selecting for, the less careful you have to be about that.
>
>Particularly when combined with a carbon filter.

That carbon filter is going to remove all kinds of stuff, including the
esters that add fruity and spicy notes to the things you'd be using an
alembic for.

>> The Busch brewery around here runs a small (50 litre/day output) column
>> which they use to extract commercial alcohol out of spent mash and other
>> general waste. It more or less runs unattended taking feed from a big
>> holding tank, but if they run the tank dry it's normally a day-long
>> operation
>> getting all of the temperatures right to get the thing started properly
>> again.
>
>Wonder why ?

I don't know, it might be a matter of scale.

>You certainly don’t get that effect with the glass column stills used

>in the chem lab. Those are a batch system tho, not continuous.

They have individual taps up and down the column at different points or just
one tap?

[Rod Speed]

Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote

> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>>Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote

>>> You can still wind up with an awful lot of crap in there,
>>> depending on the yeast. Smell the beer, taste a little of
>>> it. Using a commercial yeast nutrient package and a very
>>> clean-fermenting yeast like a champagne yeast will help.

>> And starting with just sugar too. That’s not what you do with beer.

> If you start with just sugar, the beer you get (and I use beer to
> mean anything that comes out of one or more fermentation
> steps and becomes feed stock for the still) is kind of nasty
> and cidery, because the yeasts are not healthy.

Can't agree with that at all with the yeasts
that are designed for that situation.

> Using some of the "yeast nutrient" packages that
> are available commercially ought to help this... I know
> they help a lot for people making rum from molasses.

>> True, but some of us are more into the scotch
>> end of the spirit market and in my case I don’t
>> mix it with anything at all, not even water or ice.

>> Which makes it harder to get close to the quite
>> decent commercial stuff like say Johnny Walker etc.

> It's worth trying, though!

Sure, on price alone.

> Try fermenting a malt beer, just straight sweet mash
> with no conditioning or anything and see what you get.
> Yes, it will benefit from aging, but it can be a fine, fine thing.

I haven't decided if its worth it rather than the alternative
of a decent easy to use still and a carbon filter and flavor
added to what is the purest ethanol you can make easily.

>> That’s not the reason I brew beer, I do that because the
>> result is much better than the best of the commercial
>> beer, even the bespoke commercial beers and isnt that
>> hard to do at all.

> You can certainly get into the same league as the better commercial
> whiskeys and I think you could certainly make something more
> palatable than Johnny Walker with a little effort, but admittedly
> I do not hold JW in very high regard so I might be biased.

> And I'm a brandy guy, but I live in an area where
> there is a lot of small batch whiskey going on.

Yebbut I'm not into whiskey myself, definitely prefer scotch.

>> Do you really need more than one if you just
>> want ethanol and don’t care about the proof
>> because you are diluting it anyway.

> I'd guess that it depends on how aggressively you're filtering it.

Yep. My superficial reaction is that its probably best to
filter it very aggressively indeed with a carbon filter so
you can minimise the effort required in producing what
you are going to distil, and do only one pass too.

Corse that depends on being able to get some flavouring
that you like that’s better than the best of the commercial
mass market scotches for a decent price.

>> Which brings up another question, why is commercial
>> scotch largely of about the same proof given its diluted ?

> It's made high proof to get the nasty stuff out and make it convenient for
> aging.

OK.

> It's diluted down to drinking proof (sometimes a little higher than
> drinking
> proof to my tastes) because nobody wants to drink barrel strength.

Sure, that bit was obvious.

>>> This is more important in the case of an alembic than a pot still, more
>>> important for a pot still than a reflux still, more important for a
>>> reflux
>>> still than a column. The sharper the range of molecular weights you
>>> are selecting for, the less careful you have to be about that.

>> Particularly when combined with a carbon filter.

> That carbon filter is going to remove all kinds of stuff, including the
> esters that add fruity and spicy notes to the things you'd be using an
> alembic for.

Yes, but that when you are going for the purest ethanol you can
get with a minimum of effort at fermentation and distilling time.

>>> The Busch brewery around here runs a small (50 litre/day output) column
>>> which they use to extract commercial alcohol out of spent mash and other
>>> general waste. It more or less runs unattended taking feed from a big
>>> holding tank, but if they run the tank dry it's normally a day-long
>>> operation
>>> getting all of the temperatures right to get the thing started properly
>>> again.

>> Wonder why ?

> I don't know, it might be a matter of scale.

Yeah, likely.

>> You certainly don’t get that effect with the glass column stills used
>> in the chem lab. Those are a batch system tho, not continuous.

> They have individual taps up and down the column at different points or
> just one tap?

Just one.

[Scott Dorsey]

Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote
>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>>>Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote
>
>>>> You can still wind up with an awful lot of crap in there,
>>>> depending on the yeast. Smell the beer, taste a little of
>>>> it. Using a commercial yeast nutrient package and a very
>>>> clean-fermenting yeast like a champagne yeast will help.
>
>>> And starting with just sugar too. That�s not what you do with beer.
>
>> If you start with just sugar, the beer you get (and I use beer to
>> mean anything that comes out of one or more fermentation
>> steps and becomes feed stock for the still) is kind of nasty
>> and cidery, because the yeasts are not healthy.
>
>Can't agree with that at all with the yeasts
>that are designed for that situation.

This is what I am curious about since we don't have yeasts designed for
that situation here! I would be really interested in knowing what you guys
have for that.

[Rod Speed]

Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote
> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>> Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote
>>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>>>> Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote

>>>>> You can still wind up with an awful lot of crap in there,
>>>>> depending on the yeast. Smell the beer, taste a little of
>>>>> it. Using a commercial yeast nutrient package and a very
>>>>> clean-fermenting yeast like a champagne yeast will help.

>>>> And starting with just sugar too. That’s not what you do with beer.

>>> If you start with just sugar, the beer you get (and I use beer to
>>> mean anything that comes out of one or more fermentation
>>> steps and becomes feed stock for the still) is kind of nasty
>>> and cidery, because the yeasts are not healthy.

>> Can't agree with that at all with the yeasts
>> that are designed for that situation.

> This is what I am curious about since we don't have
> yeasts designed for that situation here! I would be
> really interested in knowing what you guys have for that.

They are usually called turbo yeasts, easy to find using google.

Not cheap at all, but they do work.

The cidery doesn’t matter if you are using a carbon filter.

[Dick Adams]

Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote
>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>>> Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote
>>>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>>>>> Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote

>>>>>> You can still wind up with an awful lot of crap in there,
>>>>>> depending on the yeast. Smell the beer, taste a little of
>>>>>> it. Using a commercial yeast nutrient package and a very
>>>>>> clean-fermenting yeast like a champagne yeast will help.

>>>>> And starting with just sugar too. That's not what you do
>>>>> with beer.

>>>> If you start with just sugar, the beer you get (and I use beer
>>>> to mean anything that comes out of one or more fermentation
>>>> steps and becomes feed stock for the still) is kind of nasty
>>>> and cidery, because the yeasts are not healthy.

Where I live what you get is referred to as fermented sugar water.
Beer is made from malt - grain or extract. More important is why
are you using yeast that isn't healthy?

>>> Can't agree with that at all with the yeasts
>>> that are designed for that situation.

>> This is what I am curious about since we don't have
>> yeasts designed for that situation here! I would be
>> really interested in knowing what you guys have for that.

Where is 'here'? Unless you live in a third world country or a
country that prohibits alcohol, it's better than even money that
there's a LHBS (local homebrew store) within a 100 km of your
abode. If you can't find one, tell us the town where you live
and one of us will find one for you. You should try to find a
LHBC (local homebrew club) near you!

> They are usually called turbo yeasts, easy to find using google.
> Not cheap at all, but they do work.

You couldn't be more correct!

See amazingstill.com for details on building a low cost, efficient,
five gallon still that uses turbo yeast. It reads "To make this
plastic still work even better, Gert Strand has developed two new
Turbo Yeasts. These two Turbos - one making 14% alcohol and the
other making 16-18% alcohol - ferment so perfectly that there is
no other yeast, worldwide, that compares."

I respectfully disagree. First, it's out of date. Alcotec 48 Turbo
Yeast 135gr yields 20 liters producing 14% alcohol in 48 hrs, or 20%
in 5 days. It costs $6.50 USD.

Second, Lalvin EC-1118 will ferment over 20% ABV in 7 to 10 days, and
it costs $0.90 USD. The major difference is you are well advised to
stagger sugar inputs to avoid sugar shock. I've fermented sugar water
with EC-1118 and have always gotten at least 20% ABV. Once I got 23%
ABV.

> The cidery doesn't matter if you are using a carbon filter.

Once again you are absolutely correct. The difference between $10
vodka and $75 vodka is a matter of how many times the distillate
has been passed through a carbon filter.

Dick

[Richard]

"Rod Speed" wrote in message news:ap8l60...@mid.individual.net...
>
>
>
>"harry" <harry...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
>news:938e7963-5fea-4ec3...@w3g2000vba.googlegroups.com...

>> On Feb 27, 11:17 pm, Carl D <c...@example.com> wrote:
>>> I understand you can buy these 'water purifiers' in the UK
>>> and then follow the 'New Zealand only' instructions for
>>> illicit purposes. :-)
>>>
>>> I've looked at those instructions on the websites, but they
>>> don't tell me a few practical things, which I wonder if
>>> anyone here can advise me about.
>>>
>>> How long does a batch take to run?
>>>
>>> How much electricity does it use?
>>>
>>> If you buy one of these, do you get visits from the
>>> 'revenooers' asking to see what you're doing with it?
>>>
>>> thanks
>>
>> Pretty easy to poison yourself or go blind.

Or, in Rod's case, fucking stupid.

[Scott Dorsey]

Dick Adams <rda...@panix.com> wrote:
>Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote
>>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>>>> Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote
>>>>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>>>>>> Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote
>
>>>>>>> You can still wind up with an awful lot of crap in there,
>>>>>>> depending on the yeast. Smell the beer, taste a little of
>>>>>>> it. Using a commercial yeast nutrient package and a very
>>>>>>> clean-fermenting yeast like a champagne yeast will help.
>
>>>>>> And starting with just sugar too. That's not what you do
>>>>>> with beer.
>
>>>>> If you start with just sugar, the beer you get (and I use beer
>>>>> to mean anything that comes out of one or more fermentation
>>>>> steps and becomes feed stock for the still) is kind of nasty
>>>>> and cidery, because the yeasts are not healthy.
>
>Where I live what you get is referred to as fermented sugar water.
>Beer is made from malt - grain or extract. More important is why
>are you using yeast that isn't healthy?

Because yeasts need more than just sugar and water to live well. There
are whole sets of micronutrients that are needed if you want them to be
happy, and all of that will change the character of the beer. (If you want
to call it 'primary feedstock' instead of beer, we can do that.)

>>>> Can't agree with that at all with the yeasts
>>>> that are designed for that situation.
>
>>> This is what I am curious about since we don't have
>>> yeasts designed for that situation here! I would be
>>> really interested in knowing what you guys have for that.
>
>Where is 'here'? Unless you live in a third world country or a
>country that prohibits alcohol, it's better than even money that
>there's a LHBS (local homebrew store) within a 100 km of your
>abode. If you can't find one, tell us the town where you live
>and one of us will find one for you. You should try to find a
>LHBC (local homebrew club) near you!

Oh, I have access to all kinds of whiskey yeasts, beer yeasts, and champagne
yeasts. And, not surprisingly, they all give very different flavours because
they are all producing other things besides simple ethanol. The turbo yeasts
that we get here in the US all have very strong off-flavours, since they are
intended for distillation on a column where all that stuff would be removed
anyway.

>Once again you are absolutely correct. The difference between $10
>vodka and $75 vodka is a matter of how many times the distillate
>has been passed through a carbon filter.

That's nice if you want to make vodka.

[Carl D]

Jethro_uk wrote:

> On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:17:06 +0100, Carl D wrote:
>
> > I understand you can buy these 'water purifiers' in the UK and then
> > follow the 'New Zealand only' instructions for illicit purposes. :-)
> >
> > I've looked at those instructions on the websites, but they don't tell
> > me a few practical things, which I wonder if anyone here can advise me
> > about.
> >
> > How long does a batch take to run?
>

> You can ferment a 25l wash in 48 hours if you're really desperate. 5 days
> is more sensible. Once you have cleared the wash, it's 6 runs of 4l which
> produces 800ml of alcohol at 60% which you dilute down to 40% by adding
> 400ml water. Each run takes about 2.5 hours
>
> Once you've got the 40% it needs filtering. The Essencia 2-filter system
> is by far and a way the most effective.

>
> >
> > How much electricity does it use?
>

> 320W

>
> >
> > If you buy one of these, do you get visits from the 'revenooers' asking
> > to see what you're doing with it?
>

> Not in 5 years. AFAIK sales of stills are not recorded. I suspect they
> are suffering in silence on this one, to avoid the Streisland effect.
>
> If you are interested, there are more sophisticated stills available.
> Check out the Essencia reflux range (The Smart Still is a pot still)

ok, thanks

[Carl D]

Jethro_uk wrote:


> The finished alcohol comes out at c. 60%, and needs diluting (distilled
> water, naturally ;) ) down to 40%. Because of the nature of a pot still,
> it can still carry some hints of the brewing medium (makes it taste
> "cardboardy", so I've been told). So a good filter system is really
> important. The original SmartStills used a "teabag" of charcoal which you
> dripped the distillate through, as it ran. These were pisspoor, and
> occasionally they'd clump, and the distillate would overflow. They then
> changed this for a system where you had a charcoal cartridge you fitted
> to a receiver, and let the 60% drain through that.
>
> However, Essencia sell a filter which has a ceramic *and* charcoal
> filter. As long as you replace them when needed (after 50 washes for the
> ceramic, 5 for the charcoal) the polished alcohol is completely tasteless.

If you're making liqueurs or something like
that, do you need to dilute the 60% output to
40% first, or do you just dilute as part of
mixing up the liqueur?